In Praise of 'Joe' Wilson—

One of the big problems with American democracy is that the presidency has over the years been elevated to the level of a monarchy, with all the imperial trappings and pomposity formerly associated with royalty. Presidents surely should get no more respect than a prime minister, and look at the hoots and catcalls PMs have to endure when they address Parliament in the UK. That’s a good thing.

Obama the master of smooth rhetoric in his professorial, dignified pose. What a crock.

LIBERALS ARE ACTING ALL RIGHTEOUS AND OFFENDED that a member of the Republican opposition, Rep. “Joe” Wilson of South Carolina, would deign to besmirch the “dignity of the presidency” by calling out “You lie!” in the middle of President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening.

But what’s wrong with that? Whatever the veracity of Obama’s claim that his proposed health care “reform” would not pay for the health care of illegal immigrants residing in the US (and one can only hope that statement was fatuous, because at a minimum we would certainly want the government to pay for the care of an illegal immigrant in childbirth, or of an illegal immigrant who came down with a contagious disease), and even if Rep. Wilson is a racist bozo who wrongly thinks or wants to imply that Obama’s plan would be out there enrolling undocumented workers in the millions at taxpayer expense, why shouldn’t members of Congress call out a president if they think he’s lying to them from the podium?

One of the big problems with American democracy is that the presidency has over the years been elevated to the level of a monarchy, with all the imperial trappings and pomposity formerly associated with royalty. Presidents surely should get no more respect than a prime minister, and look at the hoots and catcalls PMs have to endure when they address Parliament in the UK. That’s a good thing.

Anyhow, it would have been far better if, instead of clapping wildly, liberal Democrats in Congress had hooted down some of the other whoppers and stretchers told by the president in his health care address.

No more than anyone else in this nation, a president should have to earn the respect not just of the members of Congress, but of the broader public. He or she is another citizen, no more and no less, and when a president, like President Obama in this instance, dissembles, exaggerates or attempts to deceive or mislead, it is healthy for democracy if he is called out on it immediately and publicly.

Among them:

1. First and foremost, Obama’s claim that he was “determined to be the last” president to have to deal with health care reform and that he didn’t want to “kick the can” down the street for a future administration to deal with. In fact, that is just what he did with his proposal, which has left the basic untenable system of employee-financed health care in place, and which has left the private insurance industry in control of who gets treatment and how much they will have to pay for it. It’s a sure bet that before very long — perhaps in just four more years — another president will face the same crisis. A boisterous cat-call of “Can Kicker!” here would have been in order.

If the hapless Joe Wilson had cried, "What about defense spending!" he would have been a hero to many more people beyond the lunatic fringe.

2. Obama said that “nothing else even comes close” to health care expenditures in terms of causing the federal deficit. In fact, something does — the military budget — but that topic is off limits for both Republicans and Democrats. Why couldn’t Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold have yelled out, “What about military spending!”

3. Perhaps one of the biggest lies of the night was the president’s claim that while there are “arguments to be made” for single-payer systems like Canada’s, switching to single-payer in the US would require building “an entirely new system from scratch.” The truth: Medicare is already a successful single-payer system and in fact, it is bigger and older than Canada’s own nation-wide system. Expanding it to cover every American would not be starting from scratch at all. It would be expanding something already time-tested. Where were the shouts of “What about Medicare!” from Rep. John Conyers (and his dozens of cosigners), whose bill, HR 676, to expand Medicare to all has been barred from getting even a hearing by the House leadership with encouragement from the White House?

4. The president insisted that insurance executives don’t “cherry-pick” profitable customers and push out those who are sickest, because they are “bad people.” He said they are just doing it because it’s profitable. It would have been nice if at least someone in the assembled throng of lobbiest-enthralled House and Senate members had shouted out something like “Just like bank robbers and drug dealers!” because the truth is that health insurance executives are bad people. They know that they are killing people every day through their ruthless policies, and they go right ahead and do it. Pursuit of profit does not, or at least should not, constitute a license to kill. (Just imagine a hit man, at his sentencing hearing, telling the judge, “I’m not a bad person, Your Honor. I just knock people off because it’s profitable.”)

5. The president said he was “not trying to put the insurance industry out of business,” and added, “They provide a legitimate service.” This line, not surprisingly, given the amount of money that industry has lavished on members of Congress and on the president himself, got what was probably the loudest bi-partisan applause of the night. But it surely led to a lot of groans and of coffee, tea or beer being spewed out involuntarily across carpets and upholstery in homes across America. Legitimate service? Insurance firms are nothing but vampires, or better, leeches on the health care system. They provide no service. Ask doctors, who have to fight to get permission to treat patients, and then fight to get reimbursed. Ask patients, who spend hours on the phone arguing with faceless drones, some probably in Bangalor or Manila, who are denying them coverage for needed medicines or procedures that are supposed to be covered. Listen to the testimony of whistle-blowers who have confirmed that those drones actually get paid bonuses based upon the number of claims they manage to deny. How satisfying it would have been if someone in Congress had yelled out, “Legitimate service my ass!”

6. Turning to the pathetically circumscribed and downsized “public option” in his “reform” plan, Obama declared that “a strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance option.” Well that may be true, but it’s not the whole truth. It would have been a great moment for Kucinich or Conyers or some other progressive member of Congress to shout out: “A majority also favors a single-payer plan!”

7. And where the defenders of women’s rights, when Obama vowed that under his plan, “no federal funds would be used to fund abortions?” Couldn’t someone have shouted out, “Women have rights too!” Is the president really saying that if a woman is raped, or a child gets pregnant through incest, or if a woman’s life is at risk because of a pregnancy, that his plan will not pay for her to obtain an abortion? Cries of “For shame!” should have been ringing through the hall!

8. Finally the president said that one reason the nation has such record deficits is that during the prior administration, so many initiatives, “including the Iraq War,” were set in motion but “not paid for,” and he vowed, “I will not make that same mistake with health care.” But he is doing the same thing with supplemental war funding requests for his war in Afghanistan, and with the continued war and occupation in Iraq, and someone should have called him on that. Besides, there’s no way that the program he is proposing will be paid for by current funding. It will add to the deficit and he should have the courage to admit it, or to call for more taxes on the wealthy to pay for it. A lusty “Tax the rich!” cry in unison from the progressive caucus would have been appreciated by viewers.

Whack-job or not, Rep. Wilson did the cause of democracy and honest discourse a favor when, faced with a statement he felt was clearly false, he found he couldn’t repress the urge to call the president a “liar.” In doing so, he put a much-needed ding in the wholly inappropriate and dangerous imperial aura of “respect” that has grown like lichens around the office of President. No more than anyone else in this nation, a president should have to earn the respect not just of the members of Congress, but of the broader public. He or she is another citizen, no more and no less, and when a president, like President Obama in this instance, dissembles, exaggerates or attempts to deceive or mislead, it is healthy for democracy if he is called out on it immediately and publicly.

We need more honesty in Washington, not more civility.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Veteran investigative journalist Dave Lindorff is author of four books, the most recent being The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin’s, 2006). His stories have appeared in such diverse publications as The Nation, Mother Jones, Businessweek, Treasury & Risk, Rolling Stone and Salon. His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net. A two-time Fulbright Scholar to China and Taiwan, he is fluent in Chinese and spent five years as a correspondent in Hong Kong for Businessweek and was county government bureau chief for the Los Angeles Daily News.

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I agree with Sarah E. The article is beautifully written and makes the arguments in a simple, clear way . Lindorff is right. Where are these Democrats who should be calling out Obama on all these points and more???

American democracy has long been of the imaginary, formal type (like most around the world so far), and the solemnity surrounding the office of the President is simply and utterly ridiculous. Andrew Jackson, or Lincoln would be surprised to see that the press, instead of stimulating a more fiery discourse, has contributed to a more complete surrender to the iconography of empty symbols and the manipulation of consent Chomsky and Herman have written extensively about. Emperors have always been immersed in this kind of pomp, and there is good reason, for great world-class criminals (as all emperors are, and modern US presidents certainly are) require such slavish submission. But who will wake up the American sheeple? The media won’t do it, and they can’t think their way out of a paper bag, let alone the sophisticated myths with which they have been indoctrinated since birth.

Don’t want to sound like a dogmatist of the old school, but the truth is in a class-divided nation like America, with deep canyons separating the super-rich (who appoint and run just about all the politicians in the land) from the plebs, this is the inevitable result. You get empty symbolism and little substance. Chauvinism has been elevated to almost a state religion now that the country needs more bodies to fight its endless wars on behalf of the same interests that ignite these conflicts. And when it comes to manipulating symbols few can match Obama, himself a symbol of accomplishment and non-racialism to so many. Too bad the symbols rarely correspond to reality.

Lindorff makes a great point! I like that people yell out what they’re thinking. Agree or not, I say let it rip!
Truth is found through doubt. And even when the challenge cones from the “wrong” direction, it forces scrutiny.

By the time Eisenhower came to power the trappings (including the media treatment) of the Imperial Presidency were already in place, and JFK, LBJ and the rest merely expanded them to the current, absurd levels. But it’s worth noting that these things do not occur in a vacuum. They require a very depoliticized public, which is exactly what America has had for a very long time. Contrary to what happens abroad, Americans devote a pitiful amount of time to politics, and a huge section of the nation lived until recent times merrily outside all political thought or activity. Business, or the rat race, was the main if not sole mental preoccupation. Too bad Americans are learning a bit too late that such self-inflicted ignorance carries a heavy price.